So this is the New Year.

Happy 2011 everyone!

2010 was a phenomenal year. A lot of great (and some not great) things happened: Continued building myself up at my first job at BMW of Seattle (and eventually quit) that job, started a new job at Mini of Seattle, took up Stand-Up Paddleboarding and became a teaching assistant at Surf Ballard, took a trip to California's central coast to see San Luis Obispo and trekked around up and down the beautiful coast, competed in my first Stand-Up Paddleboard race through Deception Pass, made a lot of new friends, re-connected with a lot of old friends, unfortunately had to say goodbye to a few friends who passed away, ran my first half-marathon, swam one mile in my first open water swimming race, saw a large number of my friends tie the knot and start a new chapter of their lives, saw a ridiculous amount of concerts and live music, drank a lot of wine/whiskey/beer, continued to keep my hands in photography with three assignments completed on my own, made sure that despite my good intentions my golf game didn't improve and still sucks, spent my 27Th birthday in Mexico, spent a lot of time with my family, grew a lot personally, got a lot of things figured out about life, and last but certainly not least: Came to the realization that I feel very good about life and where I am in it right now.

2010 definitely had it's high points and low points, but even with the tough times came endless opportunities to learn and grow as a person and that is something I definitely did.

Looking ahead to this year: I've got some big goals. While I have some road maps laid out, I'm keeping it simple and leaving it largely up to how the dice roll when it comes to a lot of things. In the beginning, I adopted the approach to just letting go and letting life unfold with out working so damn hard at things, because I finally realized last year I was working harder as opposed to smarter and found myself spinning my wheels a lot of times more than anything. I learned by keeping my head and heart in the right place, the right people/opportunities showed up to me at the right places and at the right times and a lot of great things I both imagined and never imagined ended up becoming reality in my life.

So far this year has been awesome. I've already started and finished an amazing book called The Energy Bus. The Energy Bus is a great story that talks about 10 rules to fuel up your life, work, and team with positive energy. I highly recommend everybody read this book! http://www.jongordon.com/theenergybusbook.html Work is going from five days a week to four days a week so I'll be enjoying more time off effective immediately. My first four day weekend was an amazing success filled with running, skiing, reading, relaxing, and just being me. I'm off to Las Vegas for my first trip of the year in a few weekends for a training seminar which I'm very excited about. Last but not least, I signed up for a half-marathon in May which I'm beginning to work hard for.

Some goals for this year:

-Read more books.
-See the world and people with more emotion.
-Ask myself what difference can I make with everything I do?
-Constantly share my gifts and wisdom with people.
-Be a consistently positive influence in every ones life.
-Sweat the small stuff even less(I don't really sweat the small stuff as it is already, but there's always room for improvement).
-Sit on the sidelines less and make 'Acting Now' a priority when it comes to life and my decision making.
-Travel more
-Learn to Kite-Board
-Progress ahead with my investments/business ventures
-Spend more time outside doing all of the sports I love
-Spend even more time with family.
-Indulge even more than I already do in all of my guilty pleasures in life. (you can pry my vices from my cold dead hands).
-Have even more fun than last year!

You've undoubtedly noted all of the quotes I've posted up in my Facebook page this last year and I've received a ton of positive feedback from people about it. I've even seen more of my friends start doing it themselves on a daily basis and love seeing more people jump on the bus and see that the positivity is spreading even further! It is my intention to post up a lot of positive information and inspirational quotes/subject matter in this blog for people to read and see (aside from the play by play updates of my life events) so keep tuning in if you want to see more.

With that being said, my laptop is about to die so that's the end of that.

Happy New Year everybody and hope it's a great year for you.

-Jeff